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Thursday, August 11, 2016

When all your pictures are uploaded,
they will be automatically organized by Year and Month

If you have a smartphone and you take pictures with it, you should be using Google Photos.

Using Google Photos means your photos will all be safely uploaded to your Google account in the "cloud" and you can delete them from the phone to free up space. Using the Google Photos app, you will be able to view all of the photos from the cloud. For example, I have stored all the digital photos I've ever taken, approximately 50,000 of them, in my Google account. Using the Google Photos app on any of my devices, I can see any of those 50,000 quickly and easily, even though none of them are actually on that device.

Getting Started on a Phone or Tablet

The process is the same whether your device is Apple or Android. All you do is install the Google Photos app. Go to your App store or Play store, search for the free Google Photos app and get it. After it is installed, open it. The first few screens will guide you thru the setup. Pay attention to the Google account it is using, usually a gmail address, because this is where your photos and videos will be stored.

Make sure that Backup and Sync is turned ON, then there are just 3 settings that are important:

Google Account: This is where your pictures will be stored, it is probably a gmail address, yourname@gmail.com It is very important that you know this address.

Upload Size = High Quality

Cellular data backup = No.

These are the default settings and the ones we recommend. The "High Quality" means that your photos will be slightly compressed and Google will give you unlimited storage for free. Setting cellular backup to No means that you will need to connect your device to a Wi-Fi signal in order to upload your pictures. If you turn the setting to yes, your photos will be uploaded any time you have a cell signal, but you may incur data charges.

That's it! Now connect to a WiFi signal and just wait while your photos upload.

iPhone/iPad special issue: What about your iCloud settings? If you have iCloud Photo Library turned on, you should leave it on until all your photos are successfully uploaded to Google Photos, then you can turn it off to free up space. If you have plenty of space, you can use both iCloud and Google Photos - they perform essentially the same service.

Android special issue: On Android devices there are pictures in folders other than that used by the camera. Take a look at Menu->Device Folders and see if there are any folders that you want to be included in the Backup/Upload process. Tap the little cloud icon so it turns blue - this means the folder will be included.

Using Google Photos on a Computer

There is no "Google Photos" App or Program for the computer. You simply open a browser (preferably Chrome) and visit Photos.Google.com. If you are logged into the same account as is being used by your mobile device, you will see all the same pictures.

Uploading Pictures from a Computer: The goal is to have your lifetime of photos stored in your Google account! You probably have lots of photos currently stored on your computer's hard drive and possibly other external hard drives. Let's get those!

You can go to Photos.Google.com and use the cloud icon to manually Upload pictures from your computer to your Google account. If you have lots of pictures on your computer in lots of different folders, it is much easier to use the AutoBackup feature.

Go to Photos.Google.com and make sure you are logged in to the proper Google account

Click the 3-line menu and select the bottom option: App Downloads

Download and install the Desktop Uploader

Make sure it is using the same Google account

See that it is uploading whatever folders contain your photos. To include more folders, including any attached external hard drives, click the Add Folder button.

The Desktop Uploader can automatically upload
all photos from your computer. You can even
specify attached external hard drives.

Realize that this upload procedure will not maintain your folder structure. It will grab all the photos out of their respective folders and upload them to your Google Photos Library. The library is a continuous stream of all photos in date order.

Wait. This can take a while! For my 30-40,000 pictures it took about a week! Make sure you are not using a metered data Internet connection for this ... it could cost you big bucks!

Once it is done, you can see ALL your photos from any device! You can search by date, person, place or thing! It is SOO much fun!

Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.

Monday, August 1, 2016

If you use Google Photos on your phone, they’re already there! All you have to do is go to your Youtube channel and select the videos you want.

Youtube.com and log in with the same Google Account you use for Photos

Click the Upload button and you will then see the Import Videos card

Click Import

You should now be seeing all your videos that have been uploaded to your Google Photos account – usually that is the videos taken with your phone. Click any that you want to appear in your Youtube channel, then click the Select button in lower left

Youtube needs to “process” your videos for the best playback experience. On this screen, you can add a custom Video name, description, and tags – but you don’t have to. Just click the blue Publish button in the upper right, and you’re done.

That’s it! The video that you took on your phone is now accessible with Youtube. Go Viral!!

Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983 and owned a Computer Training Center called Computer Savvy from 1983-1996. She was one of the first WordPerfect Certified trainers in 1986; President of the International Computer Training Association in 1993; Author of the Beginner’s Guide to Picasa and the PicasaGeeks.com website. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum and owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.